Your Right to Know

Armed with a recent U.S. Supreme Court ruling, a federal appeals court on Monday will revisit a
controversial legal challenge to California’s law allowing collection of DNA samples from anyone
arrested for a felony.

Whether the Supreme Court’s ruling on Maryland’s similar — though narrower — DNA-collection law
shoots down an ongoing legal attack on California’s 4-year-old statute will be the question before
a special 11-judge 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals panel.

In a 5-4 ruling, the Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of Maryland’s law, likening
collection of DNA samples to fingerprinting suspects booked into police custody.

California Attorney General Kamala Harris said the differences between the California and
Maryland laws are “not constitutionally significant” and has urged the 9th Circuit to uphold the
law.

The Obama administration has backed California’s defense of the law in the appeal, stressing the
national importance of DNA-collection laws that 28 states have enacted.